The present invention relates to an apparatus for collecting solar rays and converting their energy into thermal or electric energy and, more particularly, to a solar energy collection apparatus which includes a transparent capsule for protecting its solar ray collector from wind, rain, dust and other undesirable surroundings.
A solar energy collection apparatus has to be positively proofed against various undesirable surroundings such as wind, rain and dust. This demand is usually satisfied by housing a solar ray collector of the apparatus in a generally spherical unitary body or capsule made of transparent material. A problem emerges here is that, when the solar ray collector is bulky, the capsule for accommodating the solar ray collector becomes large-sized and it is quite difficult to form such a large transparent unitary capsule.
A large-sized capsule may be formed by combining a number of transparent flat plates at random. This has still suffered from the drawback that the solar ray collection efficiency achievable with a solar ray collector housed in such a capsule is quite limited.